Nighttime Lights
by Tayk
Summary: Companion to Look to the Stars. The stories of how Tasuki and Chichiri died as seen through Chiriko's eyes. Rated for angst, violence, more angst, and character death. Oneshot


**Disclaimer:** I do not own FY.

**Full Summary**: By request (and because I thought it was a good idea). Companion to Look to the Stars. The stories of how Tasuki and Chichiri died. It might be a good idea for you to read Look to the Stars first, to understand this, but it's not absolutely necessary. Rated for angst, violence, and character death.

**Author's Notes**: I had a lot of fun writing this, even if it was hard to kill off my favorite characters... I hope you like this! Thanks to DPFYLUVR for the idea. I guess I'll dedicate this fic to you, 'cause it was a good idea and I never would have thought of it. So. This fic is dedicated to DPFYLUVR. Thanks for reviewing my various stories and suggesting this fic!

**Nighttime Lights**

_After the War_

We lost.

Even after four and a half years, this statement numbs my mind and sends me careening into denial all over again.

We lost.

We. Lost.

The good guys lost. Nakago won. Qu-Dong won. The Seiryu won. We lost. Hong-Nan lost. Suzaku lost. The immortal phoenix has fallen.

Boushin is dead. Houki is dead. The entire royal family, along with anyone even remotely related to any of the Suzaku seishi, slaughtered. Any place dear to us, destroyed. Burned. They wanted to burn Tasuki's Mt. Lige-san, but it wouldn't burn. No one knows why. After that, they wanted to burn just his fortress, but they couldn't find it. And the soldiers sent up the mountain never returned.

My name is Oo Doukun. I am the Suzaku no shichi seishi Chiriko. The state of my beloved kingdom saddens and sickens me. I wish to be dead and rid of this life, but I am not so cowardly. We are not so cowardly. Chichiri, Tasuki, and I are the last remaining seishi of Suzaku. Amiboshi, I believe, lives in Xi-Lang with no knowledge of ever leaving that country, or going even a few miles beyond the borders of his village. Nakago has no knowledge that he, Amiboshi that is, is still alive.

Enough of them, however. Chichiri, Tasuki, and I are wanted men. Wanted _alive_ at the palace in Qu-Dong, so that Nakago can torture us before he kills us. I was dubbed too young to take care of myself, so Tasuki and I are in hiding together. Chichiri can cope better than either of us on his own, but I knew that he would be hard-pressed to take care of me, too.

The three of us agreed to meet up every couple months, to make sure that none of us had gotten caught. Truthfully, it _hurt_ to be away from Chichiri for too long. Physically hurt. I would feel achy and lethargic for days after we split ways again. Tasuki, of course, forged right on ahead and told me that he'd leave me behind if I didn't keep up. I always managed to keep up… somehow.

We met up with Chichiri about a month ago. All of us were alive and well, though the monk looked tired from a recent close call. He said things like, "My, Chiriko, look how you've grown over the last few months, no da!" as if he was some sort of doting parent and I a child come home after many months elsewhere. And then he'd tease Tasuki, and Tasuki teased back and they both ganged up on me.

It was... pleasant, I suppose, these meetings. For a few days, we were not fugitives, not fighting for our lives. We were just old friends meeting after too long apart.

Then, of course, Tasuki asked if I could go with Chichiri until our next meeting. He wanted to see his bandits again and they would take more kindly to him if he didn't have a stranger with him. Who was I to deny him the life he had lived? I went with Chichiri when we split again, and it was Tasuki who went off alone.

---

It was two weeks after Tasuki had declared his visit. Chichiri and I wandered the forests of Bei-Jia, avoiding towns and villages. It was always best to move around the four kingdoms. That way, Nakago had less chance of finding us.

I felt it first. A horrible pain in my stomach, burning, aching, eating at me so that I doubled over, half screaming and half sobbing. Chichiri turned to ask what was the matter. He, too, clutched his stomach. Our symbols began to glow, brightly. Tasuki was in trouble.

Chichiri teleported the two of us to Mount Lige-san, toward Tasuki's chi. Tasuki was there, but no one else. He lay on the ground, one arm pressed to his stomach, a red stain slowly spreading over his tunic.

"Get away," he snarled as I started toward him, intent on helping. I was shocked at the venom in his voice.

"Tasuki, I - "

"I SAID GET AWAY!" he roared. "Leave me here!"

"Chiriko, duck!" I threw myself to the ground, heeding Chichiri's words without thinking. Arrows sliced through the air where my chest had just been. I crawled toward Tasuki and snagged his wrist. Chichiri had cast a barrier around himself at the first sign of trouble, and around Tasuki and me the next instant. He tossed me his hat.

"Go through it, Tasuki," I ordered. He just stared at me, his eyes still sharp... for the moment... before crawling into the hat. I put it on and let Chichiri's spell take me away.

Chichiri had already teleported through his cape. He was tending to Tasuki. The bandit just stared at the sky through the trees, not responding when Chichiri spoke to him.

"Suzaku, Tasuki!" Chichiri was angry. "If you don't tell me what happened, so help me, I shall steal your tessen and set fire to myself!"

"Me too!" I chimed in, dropping to my knees beside the wounded bandit. Chichiri was casting a healing spell.

Tasuki didn't answer at first. I reached out to take his tessen. He shifted so that I couldn't get to it and spoke slowly, dully. "I was making my way back to the fortress when Kouji and some of the bandits appeared... I was happy to see them... Kouji told me to get out. He took out a dagger and stabbed me. Then they waited for you two."

I felt numb. Kouji had stabbed Tasuki? His leader and best friend? Tasuki lifted one hand and swatted at Chichiri's hands, breaking the healing spell. Needless to say, we were shocked. Chichiri scolded Tasuki and began the spell again.

"K'so, monk! I won't live through this." He glared, weakly, the anger quickly fading to sadness. He lifted an arm and draped it over his eyes so that the emotions in them were hidden. He mumbled something.

"What?"

Tasuki paused before speaking up a little louder. "Just go away. Both of you. Just let me die." He sounded thoroughly miserable as he spoke. Chichiri and I looked at each other. I reached out a hand and rested it on his cheek, but he didn't respond. His breathing was slow and shallow. Blood still seeped from the wound and his skin was turning icy cold already.

"Goodbye Tasuki," I choked. "We'll miss you."

He said nothing.

I couldn't believe it - in a matter of minutes, I was going to lose another of my brothers. Another of my best friends. And then Chichiri and I would be alone in a world ruled by a sadistic shogun. Abandoned by our patron god and left to the mercies of a god without mercy. How would we do it without Tasuki's ever-present brashness and optimism?

We stood and left, leaving Tasuki on his own. Chichiri closed his eye, tears trickling from under the lid. I myself was crying outright, though quietly. Neither of us spoke - neither of us _could_ speak past the lumps in our throats.

Not even a moment later, there was the horrible feeling of Tasuki's life force being ripped away for ever. He was gone, leaving gaping holes in our hearts, a pain more profound than all the others combined - for Tasuki had given up, had not fought to stay alive, had not wanted to stay alive. Kouji's hatred had wounded him that much. It was made all the worse by the strong friendship we had developed and by our unspoken assumption that Tasuki would fight until his very last breath.

We both cried for a very long time.

---

_Two years later_

My name is Oo Doukun. I am the Suzaku no shichi seishi Chiriko. I am twenty years old. Only one of my brothers is still alive - Chichiri, now thirty-one. Tasuki died two years ago. Nakago still rules the four kingdoms. He still searches for us avidly. He has yet to find us.

We did not bury Tasuki, as ashamed as I am to say this. Neither Chichiri or I could bear to see him, stiff and cold and... dead...

"Chiriko, are you crying again?" Chichiri asked me softly. I sniffled, rubbing my eyes on my sleeve, telling myself that I was a man now.

"No." But I was. He put a hand on my shoulder.

"I still cry about him too," he said, sadly. "I still miss him... it's okay to miss him, you know."

I knew.

It was dark. Late. The stars twinkled at me, small but urgent flashes that I obligingly took heed of. What I read in the celestial book made me stiffen, my eyes wide. I glanced at Chichiri. He was looking at the fire and had not seen me. I forced myself to relax and showed no outward signs of the distress inside me, but my heart remained troubled. The stars that made up Chichiri's constellation were abnormally far apart, as they had been before the deaths of the others. Chichiri was going to die soon. I didn't know if I could bear to lose my last brother.

I sighed quietly. Chichiri heard and glanced at me with a questioning expression. I shook my head to tell him that it was nothing and he respected this. We sat in silence for a long while.

"We should sleep." Chichiri never said 'no da' anymore, just as he never wore his mask. Those things gave people the impression that he was cheerful, which he obviously wasn't.

We slept. Not knowing that our lives would change drastically for the worse before we woke up.

---

"Eh. Wake up! Useless scum." Something painful hit my side, causing me to yelp a little bit. Laughter. I returned to the waking world to see a squad of palace guards towering over us. My hands were tied, as were my feet. Chichiri was tied as well, his hat and cloak safely in one guard's hands.

We had been found. Chichiri and I shared a morbid look. Now, we knew, we would be taken to the Qu-Dong palace. Nakago would laugh in our faces and probably beat us before actually killing us. What a lovely thought.

But they didn't take us to Qu-Dong's palace. They took us to Hong-Nan. We were both heartened and sickened to see the place where we had spent so much time - Chichiri more than I, really, but the point remains thus. On the outside, it had hardly changed. On the inside, however, we knew it was a seething cess pit of evil. Not that I am biased or anything.

We were thrown into the dungeons and told that the Ruler (meaning Nakago, of course) would see us at his leisure. His leisure apparently meant that it would take a very, very long time.

And it did. Chichiri and I were there for twenty years and Nakago never came. We were well taken care of, three bowls of indigestable gruel a day instead of two and a tiny window that, if we were lucky, sometimes let in a small beam of sunlight for perhaps ten minutes a day. And they only spat once in our water. Yes, we got the celebrity treatment.

After twenty years, they got careless. We were both weakened from being locked up without adequate food or water, and Chichiri more so because of his steadily climbing age. Fifty-one. He was fifty-one when we got our chance to escape.

If our spirits hadn't been shattered when Tasuki had died, they certainly were by then. Had been for years, fifteen at the least. Endless days of mockery and torment and hopelessness and dread would do that to even the strongest soul. Chichiri and I rarely spoke to each other after the first two years. We rarely acknowledged each other. I know that I preferred to live in my fantasies, some of dying and rejoining the others, some of the times when they had been alive, some of escaping and becoming someone else, leading a peaceful life without the burden of being a seishi. I cannot speak for Chichiri, but these were my fantasies and I would rather have them than reality.

I suppose you tire of hearing me ramble. I apologize and will now return to my morbid tale.

The guards got careless. They taunted us with Chichiri's hat and cloak, knowing that the items could be the means of our escape. They would hold the magic artifacts close to the strong wooden bars that held us in, pulling back as soon as one of us showed interest. They did this repeatedly, pulling back later and later until the fabric almost brushed my hands when I reached for it. Over the course of weeks, they became bolder. So much bolder. Too bold. They did not pull away in time and I managed to snag Chichiri's cape and pull it out of the guard's hand.

Of course, they instantly sounded the alarm. As I struggled to pull it through the crisscrossing bars, the door opened and armed guards flooded in. Chichiri was on his feet by then, his near-useless staff in hand, fighting off the guards to protect me. They drew blades. He blocked them with the ease of hard, though long ago, practice. He cried out as one of the blades cut a long and shallow gash in his shoulder. I finally managed to get the cape through and Chichiri chanted his spell. I vanished. He vanished.

We reappeared miles away, in the trees. Chichiri fell to his knees, hissing as he clutched the wound. I hastened to look at it, my knowledge now helpful in knowing what was wrong and how to heal it. Luckily, the gash was not so bad. I tore the sleeve of my ratty yukata and bandaged it. I could find herbs and make clean bandages later, but for now that would do. Chichiri no longer possessed the internal strength to cast so much as a healing spell and I lacked the magic to do so. That was alright. Chichiri would be fine.

The next day, he was anything but fine. His shoulder was swollen and his forehead burned at my hand from inches away. His breath was ragged and his single eyes was glazed over.

"Poison," he told me with certainty. "The blade... it was poisoned. Shimatta, if only I could still cast spells!"

"You'll survive," I told him fiercely. "You'll survive this. Chichiri, you... you have to! I don't know what I would do if you died!"

"I'll survive," he repeated. "I won't die... no da." No da. Two words he hadn't said in years, since I was a boy of fifteen. Like the mask he had thrown away at the same time. His lips curled up into some semblance of a smile. I could tell he was trying to reassure me, but it wasn't really working that well. He croaked out a request for water and I hastened to obey. Fortunately, there was a stream nearby.

I nursed Chichiri tirelessly, hoping that he would get better. He fought valiantly against the poison that was spreading through his system, but it was for naught. Two days after receiving the wound, we both knew that survival was impossible.

"Chiriko," he gasped, sweat shining on his furrowed brow. "Promise me... promise me something."

"What?" I replied instantly. "Anything. I'll do anything." There was grief in my heart, threatening to consume me. My stomach felt full and heavy. Whatever Chichiri wanted, I would promise.

"Don't get caught. Live a long and full life. Don't die until you are at least twice as old as you now are. Swear it, Chiriko! On the souls of the dead seishi."

"I promise," I said instantly. "I swear on the souls of the dead seishi, I won't get caught. I'll live a full life. I'll die old. I swear it." Strangely, I did not have trouble talking. I did not have to choke back tears or swallow a lump in my throat. He was resigned to this fate. I was resigned to a lonely life. He had fought, and I had helped, but we both knew what happened now.

"This... is not so bad," Chichiri said whimsically. "Being poisoned like this. It's not so bad. Not painful or..." He died. I felt the anticipated feeling that half of me had been torn away and shuddered. My eyes clenched shut in hope of warding off the pain, but it wouldn't go away. I knew that it wouldn't, not ever...

It was nighttime. I could not help but look up, to the stars, looking for guidance as I so often had. The constellations of the Suzaku were dim, except for mine, and no stars approached my normally surrounded stars. I was alone, the last of the Suzaku seishi, and there was no one anywhere around.

Throwing dignity to the wind, I did not fight the tears that came, as I had at Tasuki's death. There was no one to see me. No one to hear me. No one to care whether I cried or not. Everyone that had cared was dead.

---

_Forty-three years later_

It is ironic, isn't it? The youngest of all the seishi is the last one to die. I am eighty-three years old now. I have fulfilled my promise to Chichiri... for the most part. I can feel my demise, whether by natural causes or not, drawing nearer by the day. There is only one thing more I want to accomplish in this life.

I want to write. I want to tell my story. I want the legacy of Suzaku to live on forever in words.

And so I write. It has been well over sixty years since I have written or read anything. I cannot help but wonder if I still possess these abilities, but it seems that they are more aptitudes for me and I have no trouble forming the letters with my brush on my scroll. Do not ask how I acquired such things, for it is not important. My hand trembles with uncertainty as I begin to write and yet the words I form are perfectly legible.

_I'm the last one. The last seishi._

_The others are dead._

_--- _


End file.
